Famous people (including Bill) that played roles in the Griffith Observatory TC (fwd)

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 21:06:54 +0000
From: Jeff Behary <jeff_behary@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Famous people (including Bill) that played roles in the Griffith
    Observatory TC

Hello All,

Its really exciting to know that Bill is working on such an important 
project...I am positive that Earle Oviington and Frederick Finch Strong and 
Tesla himself are smiling down on that!

Dr. Frederick Finch Strong was a physician that was excited to learn of the 
new discovery of X-Rays.  He was from Boston, and traveled to a nearby town 
of Jamaica Plain where a man named Thomas Burton Kinraide was creating what 
was thought to be the most powerful X-Rays on earth at the time.  He was 
using a large Pancake Tesla Coil powered by an 8" Induction with a kerosene 
filled condenser and motor driven platinum spark gap.  Strong witnessed some 
of the first X-Rays made of the human torso (not just the softer tissues 
like the hands) in this underground laboratory.  The original apparatus and 
laboratory can be found on my site.

Strong went off to build his own Tesla Coil to experiment with.  He made a 
small coil that gave a 3" spark and used it to experiment with on patients.  
He began to X-Ray a blind woman to see if any visual sensations could be 
established from X-Rays.  She appeared to see "flashes" but nothing else.  
However, during more experiments with various Crookes and Geissler tubes the 
patient noted that her migranes had completely vanished.  Strong put two and 
two together and realised that the effects of the coil were the cause of 
this, not the random spectrum of radiation that she was enduring.  He went 
on to develop the glass vacuum applicator electrode, something that became a
household item (along with hundreds of thousands of "Violet Ray" machines 
and other Tesla Coils) by the 1920s.

Strong met an engineer in Boston Earle Ovington and the two of them 
developed the first therapeutic Tesla Coils, The Strong-Ovington Apparatus, 
The Hercules Coil, The Ajax Coil, and various variations of these.  Together 
they also formed a type of universal standard as to the way Tesla Coils 
should be constructed from a commercial point of view, but little happened 
with this.

Together they began to create a series of Conical Tesla Coils, and they put 
together an interesting travelling electrical show and a years worth of 
articles for Electrical Experimenter "Electricity In Life".  Tesla was one 
of the people who witnessed these shows.  Kenneth Strickfadden was another.

Ovington gave the coils to Strong, who traveled around and demonstrated the 
two large conical coils with his wife.  As far as I know he later donated 
them to the Griffith Park Observatory, where only one was put on display.

Ovinton went on to become the first US Airmail Pilot.  Strong was a 
practicing phyisician that moved to Santa Monica and treated high blood 
pressure with Tesla Coils until he was in his 80s.  Their friend Kenneth 
Strickfadden...Harry Goldman wrote an excellent book on that topic!

Thomas Kinraide, Frederick Strong, Earle Ovington, Kenneth Strickfadden, 
Bill Wysock.  Perhaps the most influential people associated with Tesla 
technologies since Tesla himself.

I'm just fortunate that I've met one of them in my lifetime.

Jeff Behary
The Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum
http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com

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